Tucked away in a mercifully still ungentrified street in the northern Marais, Parcelles is a very near perfect Parisian bistrot a vins, or bistro with a special focus on wine. It’s immediate charm, which comes from the wake of the addresses that proceeded it at the same address, notably Le Taxi Jaune, is joyously authentic and profoundly Parisian, from the big copper-clad bar to suspended factory lamps and a retro cracked tile floor.

This isn’t some fly-in-amber address, however. Instead, you instantly sense the suave professionalism and seriousness of the staff from the moment you’re seated at a table with a crisp white table cloth. Then there’s the delightful welcome from owner Sarah Michielsen, who’s one of the best young restauranteurs working in Paris today. This is because of her reflexive hospitality but also comes from her extensive experience of running Parisian dining rooms, including, mostly recently, that of Itinéraires, the now closed restaurant of her ex-husband, chef Sylvain Sendra.

Sommelier Bastien Fidelin is similarly cordial and attentive when he comes to the table with his rather fascinating wine list, which features organic and natural wines from all over France and beyond. The importance of his work is reflected by the name of this restaurant, too. In the French terminology of wine-making, a parcelle is a small plot of land with distinctive geographical and geological characteristics that impact the quality and character of the grapes cultivated.

Chef Julien Chevalier’s menu is regularly revised according to what’s seasonal and best in the markets, and his style is wonderfully produce centric. To wit, he aims to enhance the natural flavors of the produce he cooks rather than temper them into other tastes. In this cautiously and hopefully post pandemic moment, this simplicity and authenticity is exactly the way we want to eat right now.

So Parcelles is a sophisticated but relaxed modern bistrot a vins that aspires to and often achieves a wonderfully low-key excellence.

Meeting my friend Tina, another American journalist in Paris with a French spouse,  for lunch we got through a good hunk of media gossip over a glass of excellent Champagne (Elise Deschannes – Essentielle), and decided to order different things to give the menu a broader sampling. My steamed clams in a marine broth with fresh herbs were succulent and remarkably fresh, while Tina’s pumpkin fritters with herbed Fromage blanc were perfectly cooked in a feathery tempura-like batter.

My choice of a main course may have made Tina shudder, but I can’t resist ris de veau (veal sweetbreads), because I love their resonantly carnal taste and texture. Here, they were impeccably cooked, with some light crusting and garnish of fried sage leaves, and served on a bed of buttery potato puree with a beautifully made silken sauce of veal stock and pan drippings. Tina’s guinea hen was a succulent piece of bird with garnishes of spelt risotto, a thick asparagus spear, and some tapenade. Both plates were generously served and the cooking was. light, precise and full of flavor.

The wine I somewhat begrudgingly allowed sommelier Bastien Fidelin to chose–I’d been leaning towards something from the Cotes du Rhone or Languedoc, was outstanding with this meal, too: Saint Veran – 2019 – Les Pommards by Jessica Litaud, an exceptionally talented young winemaker.

We concluded by sharing a truly perfect creme caramel and the fuzz of well-being that follows a delicious and beautifully served meal (N.B. Don’t miss the lemon cream crumble if it’s on offer).

Since I’m still savoring every meal out with a quiet sense of grateful wonderment after the misery of the two restaurant shutdowns in France, I couldn’t help but thinking that it’s restaurants like Parcelles, not the over-hyped tables of the latest winners of the competitive cooking shows on French television, that form the ballast of Paris’s enduring reputation for gastronomic excellence.

Creativity has its place in the kitchen and can be rather fascinating, but Gallic gastronomic classicism delivers a purring pleasure that is truly timeless in its elegance and sensuality.

13 rue Chapon, 3rd Arrondissement, Paris, Tel. (33) 01 43 37 91 64, Métro : Arts et Metiers. Open Mon-Sat. for lunch and dinner. Closed Sunday. www.parcelles-paris.fr Average a la carte 50 Euros.

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Though the ambient consumer culture in most Western countries presents aging as akin to a slowly developing case of the plague, I enjoy the annual privilege of notching another year on my belt. I’m much happier today than I was when I was twenty-one, and I’ve also lived long enough to see the outlines of an interesting and rewarding life emerging out of the ether of youth. In fact one of the more amusing things as time goes by is a deepening understanding that the to-twenty-something-year-old ears tiresome bromide that ‘all experience is somehow useful’ actually turns out to be true.

On those painfully always too early-to-work mornings, because they followed too-bibulous-and-too-late-to-bed evening after evening, when I was grinding cabbage after cabbage to make enough coleslaw to feed a hundred hotel guests at noon–one summer I worked as a salad chef in a hotel kitchen on Fire Island of all places, I never dreamt that this tedium would yield valuable experience. In the space of a few hours, I had to make grated-carrot-in-gelatin salad (the crowd at this hotel preferred orange or cherry Jello, just for the record), macaroni salad, tomato salad, tuna salad, rice salad, three-bean salad, and others, and I went through big institutional jar after jar of Sweet Life brand mayonnaise, bottles of lemon juice and frighteningly cheap olive oil, and, I’m afraid to admit, my hygiene as I hastily executed these chores was, well, let’s say it was casual to put it politely. Fortunately, I never poisoned anyone to the best of my knowledge, and during other similar college summers, I also worked variously as a bus boy, a waiter, and a line cook, and I was just awful at all of these jobs. What these long ago activities left me with, however, was a real hands-on knowledge of how restaurant kitchens and dining rooms really work and a profound respect for all players in the restaurant business.

What brought all of this to mind the other night was when I showed up at L’Intention, a new bistro in the Marais that opened last July, and the very polite but slightly harried young man in the dining room sheepishly told me that he’d be doing everything himself that night, i.e. all of the cooking and also waiting table, because his waitress was out sick. I assured him that I was sure everything would be just fine, and my friend Greta and I would be understanding. Since there were only three tables of two in the dining room, I was pretty sure he’d be okay, too, but when Greta showed up, I told her we should order right away so that our orders could be staggered between those of the table that was already occupied when I arrived, and those who were seated a few minutes after she sat down.

The simple little dining room with exposed stone walls, modern art on the walls, modern lighting fixtures and dark wooden tables had the same winsomely sincere aura as the short menu did, too. The three starters–mache salad with hazelnuts and a beet-and-tarragon vinaigrette, parsnip soup garnished with boned confit de canard, and leeks with a poached organic egg, salad and a creamy mustard vinaigrette all appealed and were all offered in PT or GT–half or full portions, a nice touch, as was a risotto with pumpkin and Parmesan cream.

There were three main courses, too: poached roasted guinea hen with smoked bacon, creamed cabbage and chestnuts; daube de boeuf with baked polenta; and salmon slow cooked with winter fruits (quince, apples and pears) and vegetables (carrots, parsnips and turnips) in a casserole. Well, we both ended up ordering a half portion of the leeks and the daube de boeuf, because that’s what we both wanted. To be honest, I tried to cajole Greta into the risotto and the salmon, but she wasn’t budging.

The leeks were pleasant–neatly trimmed and tender and the accompanying egg perfectly poached. I’d have liked the vinaigrette to be more authoritative, though, and this dish very much needed more salt and pepper. The daube de boeuf was not quite what I was expecting either, since it came as a decidedly cartilagenous single slice of tender beef in a curiously sweet red wine sauce with nice little Nicois olives and a wedge of slightly dry oven-baked polenta. If it was a nicely made dish, the sauce lacked the ruddy depth of a really superb daube like the one chef Dominique Le Stanc serves at La Merenda in Nice, and I’d have preferred the polenta to be creamy and rich with Parmesan as opposed to solid.

I’ve thought a lot about these two dishes during the last twenty-four hours, since I make a sometimes agonizing effort to be fair to a chef as sincere and competent as Cédric Barbarat, who previously cooked at La Cour Jardin restaurant at the Hotel Plaza Athénée and most recently at Sofitel Pullman de Versailles. As I learned many years ago, working in a kitchen is seriously hard work, so working in a kitchen and simultaneously running a dining room is a real high-wire act. So under the circumstances, this was an agreable meal that was served with charm and generosity, but I’d like Barbarat to channel his lustier instincts in the kitchen, where I think he’s currently too timid, and then this nice little bistro will likely see me again. Oh, and he should also take the cheeses he’s planning to serve of any given service out of the fridge earlier, and refuse delivery of a cheese that was as many miles from being ripe as the camembert that was served with the Saint Maure and compte that comprised the cheese course we split as we finished up an excellent bottle of Le Petit Canon de Lariveau, a canon-fronsac by winemaker Nicolas Dabudyk that’s a terrific food wine and a great buy at 22 Euros a bottle. Overall, though, Barbarat’s intentions are good and mine are too.

L’Intention, 3, rue du Roi-Doré, 3rd, Tel. 01-42-74-31-22. Closed Saturday and Sunday. Average 40 Euros.

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Though I am not vegetarian, I have many friends who are, and I love the regular meat-free meal. So aside from a couple of reliable local favorites–Bob’s Kitchen leaps to mind for its fabulous vegetrian ‘stew’ and all-vegetarian futomaki, plus terrific smoothies, I find that too many vegetarian places in Paris veer between an attitude of exalted preciousness, i.e., everyone who isn’t vegetarian is an ignorant pig, and/or a chip-on-the-shoulder late hippy pleasure-is-so-bourgeois foolishness. And worse than either of these attitudes is the fact that so few of them are any good.

With my very good vegetarian friend Greta coming to visit from Portland, Oregon early next month, I recently decided to see what I could find among the most recently opened flock of vegetarian restaurants that might make her happy (the item she’s craving most of all in Paris, by the way, are the 12 vegetable spring rolls served at the wonderful Indochinese restaurant Au Coin des Gourmets, 5 rue Dante, 5th, Tel. 01-43-26-12-92. Metro: Maubert-Mutualite).

The best of the bunch by far was Green Pizz (clever name alert!), which specializes in organic pizzas made with a tasty dough created from a mix of different organic flours. The casual but attractive look of the restaurant with its California hip decor of milk-glass suspension lamps wood panelling and some fire-engine red chairs was immediately appealing, service was friendly, and the place was packed when I popped in for lunch on my own last week. I  ordered an “All Green,” which came topped with a lively pesto sauce, arugula, baby peas and ricotta and it was delicious if not exactly a pizza most Neapolitan pizza-makers would ever lay claim to. This place is fun, reasonably priced and good, however, and I know Greta will like it, too.

Going out on bread run the other day–Arnaud Delmontel’s ”Rennaissance” is my idea of baguette bliss so I was headed for his shop in the rue des Martyrs in the 9th, I saw a line of people on the pavement in the rue Notre Dame de Lorette and wandered over to see what it was about. It turns out people were waiting to get into a tiny little vegetarian place called Pousse-Pousse, which confirmed my hunch that a cutesy pie name is one de rigeur aspect of the new generation of veggie places in Paris. Peering over people’s shoulders, the food looked good, so I decided to get my bread and come back for lunch. It turns out that the specialty of this very popular vest-pocket place is dishes made with ‘pousses,’ or sprouted grains. Hungry, I decided to go whole hog–oops, why don’t I say whole potato instead, and order the pousse-pousse plate, which changes daily but included bulgur with tomatoes, olives and sprouts, a slice of sweet potato sprinkled with sesame seeds, a julienne of carrots and cucumbers with herb pesto and a green salad the other day. All of it was delicious, and my only regret was that this place isn’t much larger than a shoe-box, although they also do take away if you want some elbow room.

Unlike many vegetarian restaurants, Soya is also open in the evening, so I stopped by for dinner with an avidly gourmet friend who also happens to be vegetarian, and we had a pleasant meal in this relaxed, friendly bobo nest in the 11th arrondissement. Among the dishes we liked were their mezze, houmous, soy couscous, lasagna stuffed with tofu, and tofu cheesecake. The menu changes daily but always includes two starters, two main courses, two desserts, and two different smoothies, almost all of which involve soy products in one form or another.

If this fresh crop of veggie newcomers is much better than most of what was on offer before, I know what I’m going to get up to for dinner the first night that Greta’s in town. Even though I agree with the critic of the French newspaper Le Figaro Francois Simon who recently described chef Alain Passard’s restaurant Arpege as “monstrously expensive,” and it is, Passard’s website regularly offers new recipes that are pretty much within the ken of all comers. So my plan is to set aside a couple of these recipes, shop the terrific organic Saturday morning market at Les Batignolles, and offer Greta a superb home-cooked meal the night she gets in. Asparagus should still be in the markets, there will be new potatoes, baby beets, and fava beans, and it’ll be fun to cook up a storm at home that night, since the stunning organic produce available in many French markets and shops is any visiting vegetarian’s best bet.

Bob’s Kitchen, 74, rue des Gravilliers, 3rd, Tel. 09-52-55-11-66. Metro: Arts et Metiers. Mon-Fri 8am-3pm, Sun 10am-4pm. Average 10-15 Euros.

Green Pizz, 8 rue Cadet, 9th, Tel. 01-48-00-03-29. Metro: Cadet. Open Tuesday to Friday, Monday dinner only. Average 14 Euros, lunch menus 9.90-16.50 Euros.

Pousse-Pousse,  7 rue Notre Dame de Lorette, 9th, Tel 01-53-16-10-81. Metro: Notre-Dame-de-Lorette. Tuesday-Friday noon-3.45pm, Saturday noon-4pm. Average 20 Euros.

Soya, 20 rue de la Pierre-Levee, 11th, Tel. 01-48-06-33-02. Metro: Goncourt. Open Tuesday-Saturday for lunch and dinner. Monday lunch only. Closed Sunday. Average: lunch-menu 15 Euros, a la carte dinner menu, 25 Euros.

The post NEW VEGETARIAN RESTAURANTS IN PARIS: Green Pizz, B; Pousse-Pousse, B; Soya, C+ appeared first on Alexander Lobrano.

These hideous sandwiches offer a terrible confirmation of the international blog chatter that would insist that France’s best gastronomic days are behind it. And yet ten minutes later, I was seated in a quietly stylish bistro with perfect low lighting, pots of white orchids in the windows, and perfectly bleached ancient white beams overhead and staring at a truly superb menu. I’d been wanting to get to Pramil, in the ever trendier 3rd arrondissement, for a longtime, but it’s rare that I have a night when I don’t have to go somewhere that’s new, new, new.

Martine, an elegant woman who loves good food and wine, is someone I’ve known for years, or ever since she invited me to an epic wine-tasting at Alain Senderens’s gorgeous chateau outside of Cahors. Our paths cross much too infrequently, so I really wanted to take her somewhere that was, well, very Parisian and served food she might not run into in Cahors. A gaggle of friends had recommended Pramil, and so I decided to take a chance (I rarely invite anyone aside from professional colleagues to dinner in a restaurant I haven’t been to before).

A warm welcome got things off to a good start, and I appreciated the comfortable distance between the tables in the front room, and the effort the waitress made to prevent our table from rocking. Next, the menu, which offered up a suite of temptations. Martine began with a salad of “ficoide glaciale,” a fleshy succulent salad similar to the ice plant that’s a feature of southern Californian landscaping, with grilled shrimp and roasted tomatoes, and I tried the white asparagus soup with a ball of foie gras ice cream. Martine’s salad with excellent, and I liked my soup, but found the ice cream a bit gimmicky. A few ribbons of foie gras would have underlined the wonderful earthy flavor of the asparagus more effectively than the cold sweet ice cream, but the soup was beautifully made and pleasantly tinted with piment d’Espelette, which back-stopped its richness.

Next, exquisitely grilled scallops in a light cream sauce with wilted spinach leaves for me, and a succulent onglet de veau (veal steak) with olive-oil accented potato puree for Martine. A stunningly good white Savigny les Beaune was ideal with this main courses, and also worked perfectly with the excellent selection of cheeses, the best of which was a first-of-season chevre from the Loire, that I chose instead of dessert. Martine was very happy with her nougat glace, and asked for a card while I was paying the bill. “This is exactly the sort of restaurant I love finding in Paris,” she said as we walked home afterwards, and I not only agree, but would submit that the brilliantly high incidence of restaurants like Pramil in Paris is the perfect retort to anyone who’d have you believe that Paris is becoming a gastronomic backwater. Now if I could only do something about those horrendous sandwiches at the Royal Trinite that I am forced to gaze upon everyday….

Pramil, 9 rue du Vertbois, 3rd, Tel. 01-42-72-03-60. Mo Temple or Republique. Open for lunch and dinner from Tuesday through Saturday, and also on Sunday nights.

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